What should every PHP programmer know? [closed]

Answer 1

Although this isn't a technology, I think it's very important that you understand that, when using PHP, it is completely on you to write good code. PHP is capable of it, but it does not encourage it. You are completely responsible for writing code that is well designed and, if you choose, follows OO principles. You will have no help from the language.

Answer 2

PHP was my first language, which I learned on the side while working as an office junior in my first job over 10 years ago. Here is some things from my experience:

• Download the PHP manual, print it off, and start reading from page one. Keep going till you're at the end. Skim over the bits you probably won't need (like using KADM5 or Hyperwave) but always read the introductions so you know what PHP is capable of (this will save you trying to re-invent the wheel). The PHP documentation blows the docs of pretty-much every other language I've worked with since out of the water.
• Next step; set up PHP. Manually. Don't use XAMPP or anything else, do it yourself. It always helps to know how your environment is set up.
• Don't bother with an IDE at the beginning. Getting to know a language means getting up-close-and-personal. IDEs obscure things in an attempt to help you GetThingsDone which works great when you know what you're doing and know your target environment, but when you're starting out they just get in the way and hide what's important.
• Don't bother with frameworks at the beginning, either. Again, they're there to help you GetThingsDone which only works when you know what you're doing in the first place. Start with the basics, otherwise you'll be learning the framework and not PHP.
• PHP is essentially an advanced templating engine. Don't fall into the trap of over-hyped "PHP templating engines". They're just doing what PHP already does, doubling-up on the work and running twice as slow as PHP does. Stick with inline html/php to start with. Again, this'll help you get to understand what PHP is, how it works, and when to use it.
• As with AJAX and CSS... they're nothing to do with PHP, but with the output you produce from PHP (and with AJAX getting input in). Don't load your plate with too much to eat at once. Start with plain PHP+HTML, and do your CSS by hand. Then, when you're happy, mix in a little javascript.
• The best thing you can do with any language is learn the environment you're going to be working in, because programming is (relatively) similar across all of them. They all have loops, data structures, input/output, etc, but they all work just that little differently.
• Don't believe the hype. I'm moving from PHP to Python at the moment and I could've just jumped on the Django band-wagon to GetThingsDone, but I know that if I came across a problem I wouldn't know where to begin to fix it. So I'm taking my own advice and starting from the beginning; reading the manual, setting up an test system, parsing simple files, getting input/output, getting it linked in with a web server... all part of getting to know my new environment.

Answer 3

Use a great IDE (like Eclipse for example) that let you debug and have some code completion. This will save you some time.

PHP have a lot of programmer and is very popular = a lot of thing is already done for you, before writing some code, doing a google search is always a good idea.

You should use some of the Framework if you start from scratch. This will answer all your question about AJax, template engines... because most of them come with these packages. Here is some post about how to start choosing a framework: SO 1, SO2, Here is a list of PHP Framework.

You can develop PHP on Windows, Linux or Mac.

Answer 4

Getting a web server setup

To run PHP and MySQL locally on your computer you will need to install Apache webserver with php module and MySQL database server. ie. a LAMP webserver (Linux Apache MySQL PHP).

In the past, I would recommend installing Ubuntu. These days, there are a few solutions available that will give you one click installation webserver without using linux.

For Windows:
http://www.wampserver.com

For OSX: http://www.mamp.info

After having a LAMP webserver use w3schools.com tutorials to start.

Answer 5

Security is an important topic every web programmer should study before being allowed to post code that can be accessed publicly on the internet.

Examples of security issues:

• Injection flaws
• Cross-site scripting flaws
• Cross-site request forgery

There are more security issues that you should know and keep in mind as you write PHP applications. The website http://www.owasp.org contains lots of useful information to help.

Answer 6

1. No Php framework expert.As templating which make the system much complex then as it.
2. Understand business logic requirement and think the cons/pro.Hoping for SA to think all for you is not good programmer.
3. No ajax.I dealing with large of data,rendering to one js file about 4000 k data is very bad.
4. Start from notepad or VI
5. After learn php about 1 to 2 years,try learn other language like c# or c++ to improve your php application.
6. Php is addicted language rather then other language.You type it works.Other language,you type It's Compile It's Hang up. 7.For complexity application,php is the best to me rather then other language,because you think,you write it works.